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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26955388">let us return to the beginning, my love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeelaGranger/pseuds/LeelaGranger'>LeelaGranger</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Historical Accuracy, Holocaust Reference, How Do I Tag, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Jerusalem, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, Kissing, Language, M/M, Memories, Muslim Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Nicky Waxes Poetic, Returning to Jerusalem, let Nicky do poetry, references to Yiddish and Ladino, עברית | Hebrew</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:53:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,808</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26955388</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeelaGranger/pseuds/LeelaGranger</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They avoid going back to the Holy Land for many years until Nicolo decides it's time to make new memories. They grow to love this city that is older than they are and they have a tradition to maintain.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>let us return to the beginning, my love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is a self-indulgent piece I wrote one morning for no reason whatsoever.  enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There are always mixed feelings when coming back here. On the one hand, it was the beginning of their story. The place they met and realized that they were bound together by some unknown force that refused to let them die. On the other hand, where they met had been a battlefield, red and brown with blood and shit. Sometimes the scent came back to Nicky after a job when he smelled new blood and shit.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is where their story began but their story began with death. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Back sometime when the Ottoman’s controlled the region, Nicky had the idea to go back and make some new memories. Maybe it was the late 1600s? The years blurred together at a certain point even if memories could stay with clarity. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So the two had gone back to what was still called the Holy Land but bore no official name. They wandered around Jerusalem with its thick stone walls. It was older than they were. Had already known so much history and heartbreak and rebirth before they had been born. Yusuf found that comforting. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I like that something so old is still here. So full of life. Listen to the people in the market and the children playing. So different from when we were here last.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think ‘different’ fully captures it,” Nicolò replied, “There is no one here cowering at the misplaced fury of a group of invaders to start.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought the idea of this trip was not to dwell on such unpleasantries and make new memories. If this place can forget and move on, why should we not as well?” So they went. Yusuf visited the mosques and even went to the Dome of the Rock with all its splendid and vivid colors. The gold of the dome took his breath away. Nicolò refused to come out of respect for such a holy site and Yusuf spent the rest of the day trying to capture its majesty in a portrait of words. Nicolò smiled and fell a little more in love with him. His faith and his passion for beauty burned in him and Nicolò loved him in a way he never thought possible. </span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I want to go to the battlefield,” Nicolò said one morning while they were eating. They hadn’t been outside the walls of the city except upon approach and Nicolò knew they were avoiding it. Their time thus far had been lovely filled with art and good food and just contentment. But it was time. Time for the plan Yusuf pretended he didn’t know Nicolò was constructing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But why? What could possibly be the point?” Nicolò knew this question was coming and had prepared for it. He was not as naturally eloquent as Yusuf, but he had time to think he could be. After all, in seminary they had taught them to prepare sermons for Mass. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have kissed all the places my blade cut you more times than I can count, but the memory still haunts me. I know we have left our hatred in the past, but I live for loving you. I hate to see you even mildly injured, despite knowing that you will heal. The thought that I ever hurt you, ever killed you, is a thought that haunts me still. I can’t remember what it was to hate you. So what is the point, my love? The point is to go there and kiss every place my blade cut you all over again. To paint over the invisible scars that only you and I know are there.” Nicolò rarely spoke that many words at once and he carefully took a long drink and looked at Yusuf. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were tears in the corner of his mesmerized eyes. Yusuf was the man of words and Nicolò of actions and one liners. He needed a moment to digest all he heard. And Nicolò, ever the patient man, said nothing and waited without expectation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You must warn me, my moon, when you are about to speak like that. A man must prepare for your rare poetry. As to what you said, if this is something you feel will be good for you, then I'll go with you happily. Who am I to say no to your kisses?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so they went. Not many people lurked this far outside the walls, especially as it got dark outside. So there was more than a semblance of privacy in the open field. And besides, the only person in the world deadlier than they were was not here. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course they did not know the exact spot they had killed each other. Also it was more than once in more than one location. Eventually, Nicolò found a spot that he deemed suitable and carried out his plan with the precision of a man who would one day be a sniper. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They went back throughout the centuries. Ottoman control lasted for a long time and so the city remained unchanged for a long time, to the point there was a familiarity to it. That changed in the nineteenth century and soon the British took over. They all fucking hated the British. They had a nasty habit of screwing up just about every place they went and this was no exception. By the time they were willing to relinquish control of the region they named Palestine, they had promised it to three different peoples and were somehow surprised when that ended in war. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joe and Nicky had gotten involved in many wars over the years, but they refused to enter another fight for the Holy Land. And they were still so weary from World War Two.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I still have to admire the dedication of some people though,” Joe said one night, “So many of those soldiers have just come out of the worst war ever known. They were in those thrice-damned camps and starved within an inch of their lives and degraded, and yet not three years later are fighting with so much passion and fervor. So much life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were not yet born when their suffering began,” Andy responded, taking a long drink, “The Jews have been kicked out of every place they’ve ever settled. They have been killed and blamed for things they had no hand in and now it just reached a peak unlike anything even I’ve ever seen. Honestly, it makes no sense they’ve survived. I was not surprised when I heard that Herzl guy tried to convince them they should have their own land and not surprised when they started moving there. And that was before the war. I mean some of them have been there for centuries already as is. So how can you be surprised that they're seizing this opportunity?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We killed them on the way to the Holy Land back then,”  Nicky said and Joe shook his head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You forget that in later Crusades, you protected them.” Nicky didn’t respond.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hope this conflict ends soon. There were so many years of peace there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck the British,” Booker said. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck the British,” they all responded. One of them with deeper hatred than the others.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now they were with Nile, showing her around. They had thought not to go back until the conflict was resolved, but that appeared to be at a standstill and they didn’t want to wait any longer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They appear to have built over the battlefield,” Joe told her.  And it was true. The twenty-first century Jerusalem had expanded well beyond the confines of the walls of what was now called, “The Old City.” Cranes towered overhead everywhere you looked. A city under construction, that was only getting bigger. The whole country was like that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nile took in everything, as she always did, with wide eyes and a smile. She also found it nice that almost every menu was also offered in English, much to Joe and Nicky’s displeasure. They were trying to teach her languages. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I like knowing what I’m eating. And there are so many things to try!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nicky had a particular passion for Hebrew and refused to converse in anything but it for the duration of their trip. It fascinated him in a way no language ever had. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d always thought of Hebrew like Latin. A language of books and religion that was not used in normal conversation. He’d had a reverence for it back in his seminary days, as it was the original language of the Old Testament. But then a miracle happened. It became a vernacular language. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bits and pieces of it had always been spoken in Ladino and Yiddish and poetry, but not like this. Never had Nicky seen a previously  dead language be revived like this. Never seen such a scholarly language become one spoken by millions in everyday speech. It was not often that he witnessed something new outside of modern technology. This was new. Advancement was expected but not this. This he found to be a miracle. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nile wanted to visit places outside Jerusalem and they promised to take her to Tel Aviv. And Joe wanted to go to paint Machtesh Ramon. But not before taking her to the Old City. Its walls still there, though now many had bullet marks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So how does it feel to be a city that is older than you are?” Nile asked, still unable to comprehend their age.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love it and hate it,” Joe replied, “Mostly love, but hate that I don’t know if the historians are right. They get so much wrong and I hate not knowing whether I can believe them.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait, how often do they get it wrong?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think Churchill said it best,” Nicky said. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“‘History is written by the winners.’ Yeah, I know that one.” Nile continued walking, eager to explore the Christian quarter. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We have yet to fulfill our tradition, אהובי,” Joe whispered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry, I have not forgotten. For our last night here I booked a different hotel.” It was one that was close enough to where they had first killed one another to satisfy him. It would smell of exhaust fumes and bakeries, not blood and shit, but that was not something that bothered him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>On their last night, they bid Nile good night after dinner and told her if she needed anything to come to them and then took off for the evening. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The world has changed so much since we’ve started,” Joe said, “But this, this is constant.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“חיים שלי,” Nicky responded and got to work. Every place his sword had cut or hands had bruised were lavished with gentleness. Starting at the top of Yusuf's neck and going down his chest then to his knees. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This was the place their story began and this was the place they would return to to continue it. Over and over and over again. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>אהובי - my love<br/>חיים שלי - my life</p><p>okay so i obviously have some *thoughts* about the hebrew language and i finally have a character who i can project that onto yay! also on the british empire and how they totally fucked over the Israel/Palestine situation. but i think anyone who knows history knows that they sucked. also if you squint there is a reference to quyhn here. basically i wrote this on a whim and i hope you enjoyed. </p><p>also, machtesh ramon or the ramon crater is one the best most beautiful place in the world. </p><p>obviously kudos and comments are appreciated!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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